Nintendo on Why New Zelda Was Delayed

Why was Zelda Breath of the Wild delayed? Why is it taking longer to create than most folks would like? If you’ve found yourself pondering these two questions, then you’re in luck.

In an interview with Kotaku, series producer Eiji Aonuma explains why the new Zelda needed to be delayed, and why it’s taking longer than usual to develop.

“When we think about the release period for any Zelda game, we really want to get it out as soon as possible so that everybody can play and experience it,” says Aonuma.

Exit Theatre Mode

“But every time we make a Zelda, we want to make something new. It’s hard to gauge how long that’s going to take. And it’s also hard to gauge at what point whatever we consider to be new is done.”

“A lot of times what we try to tackle takes a lot longer than anticipated. So that’s why many times the development struggle there is a delay. The people around us keep telling us: ‘This is the last one. You really need to shape up.’”

“I think there’s different reasons for delays,” says Miyamoto. “One could be that the direction just hasn’t been decided, which is probably the worst kind of delay. And the other is that the direction has been decided but putting that into reality—implementing that—is taking time. So it might have taken us six months to do this much. It’ll take us a year to do that much.”

Exit Theatre Mode

Miyamoto goes on to point out taking Breath of the Wild in a new direction – physics, AI, graphics – takes time, and Nintendo had to make sure the team had an ample amount of time to create they game how they wanted.

“It just dawned on us that we’re not able to do that in this schedule. That’s what we realized about two years ago. In this instance, we never really experienced this, so that’s why we had to delay it.”